Heartache and Hope (Heartache Duet #1)(12)

“I just what?” I interrupt. “I just need to find a few extra hours in the week, so I can make time to hang out, go on dates… no. It wouldn’t work. And I don’t want it to, so there’s that.”

Trevor watches me warily. One second. Two. Then he nods, slow, as if afraid to say anything else.

I make my way over to him and place my hands on his back, pushing him toward the living room. “Will you please go and relax. Let me do something for once.”

He grabs a beer from the fridge before taking my instructions.

We eat dinner at the table—just Trevor and me—and we laugh, and we talk, and we go back to who we were before. Before the weight of uncertainty and responsibility crashed into us, wave after wave of hopelessness and desperation. We become people again, individualized by what little hopes and dreams we have for the future. And when we’re washing up at the sink once we’re done eating, I look outside, see the fireflies glowing like embers searching for freedom.

“They’ll be gone soon,” I murmur, motioning toward them. “They’re so beautiful.”

Trevor takes a moment, watching them with me. Then he settles his hand on my shoulder, presses his lips to my temple. “I’m glad she was here to see them this year, Ava. I’m glad we all were.”





Trevor’s fallen asleep on the couch, hands on his chest as he breathes to a steady rhythm. But even with his eyes closed, muscles relaxed, his brow is bunched, as if his troubles never truly leave him. There are electrical plans scattered on the coffee table, his laptop sitting atop them. I go to close it but freeze when my gaze catches on the screen. There’s a picture of his ex, Amy, with another guy’s arms wrapped around her. She’s smiling as if their heartbreak had no history. I look over at Trevor again, at the stress lines that mar his youthful face, and my chest tightens. Heat burns behind my eyes, my nose, and I cover my mouth, so my single sob doesn’t wake him.

Amy had been his girl two weeks into college, and if I ever doubted that true love existed, I’d go to them. When my fourteen-year-old self questioned life, I’d go to them. Not just one or the other. But both of them. They were a team, a fortress, a love so strong I thought nothing could break them. But I did. I broke them. I still remember listening in on Trevor’s call to her—he here and she in Texas—the way he struggled to get through his words without his voice cracking. “I can’t come back,” he’d told her. “And I can’t hold you back because of it.”

I sat in my room that night, tear after tear, cry after cry. Hopelessness swam through my veins, pulsed through my airways.

I see the empty bottles of beer on the floor, and I fight to keep it together, to contain my emotions. To conquer them. Tears stream down my cheeks, and I hold back my cries. But it’s useless. I’m too far gone, and I wasn’t built with the strength my mother holds. Trevor wakes, and he’s quick to sit up. To notice my anguish. “Hey,” he coos, his arms around me like a shield. A protector. Always. “Ava, it’s okay. What happened?” I cry into his chest, tears of self-loathing soaking into his T-shirt. I can’t speak; I can’t say the words.

Remorse.

Regret.

Guilt.

He holds on to me—my Knight—and I try to remember why it was I called him. Why amid the darkest and most terrifying moment of my life, I couldn’t fight my need for him, for anyone, just so I wouldn’t have to go it alone. It had been a year since his father had walked out, a year of Trevor calling every other day to check in on me when he had no real reason to. And so when I look back on it—at the crimson life seeping into my hands, the way the liquid pooled on the glass layer of my phone, making it impossible to see—as if the tears weren’t enough, as if the scene in front of me wasn’t enough to force my eyes shut… I know I should’ve called 911.

But instead, I called Trevor. And I gave him no other choice but to come home and carry the burden of what should have been his father’s. The difference is, Trevor stayed.

Because for Trevor, love is enough.

Love is everything.

He is the conqueror.

He is.

He is.





Chapter 10





Ava





In my desk drawer lives a check.

A check for six figures.

Signed by Peter Parker.

The sum is enough to put my mom in a treatment center full-time.

In my mind,

I wonder what it would be like not to have to worry as much as we do.

In my heart,

I try to imagine what it would feel like to abandon her like that.

The check is made out to me.

I can take care of you, Ava, Peter said.

But it’s our little secret.

In my mind,

I wonder why he didn’t offer it to Trevor.

But in my heart,

I already know.

In my desk drawer lives a picture.

Me and Mom surrounded by fireflies.

When the world is at its darkest, that’s when the magic appears, my mom says.

So, in my mind,

I question if the check is a form of magic.

But in my heart,

I believe that hope creates the magician.





Chapter 11